Author's Note: It's been a while since I've tried my hand at this. Have I really not touched FF7 since August '11? Worse… Have I really not touched Reeve since June '10? Oh well. Let's see if I remember how it goes. If I remember the old steps. If you don't like FF7, well, then don't linger. If you do, by all means read and critique because it's been so long that I can't tell if I remember how to do this anymore. And if you have no opinion, either go untouched, or stay and consider this, the purest and truest of my muses. This is, by no means, complete. Just a momentary reflection I need to clear my mind.
Yes
When he looks around him, what he sees is the scattered remnants of the life he was supposed to have lived. The one he'd imagined when he was a little boy, building sandcastles on the beach and playing at creating.
Back then it had been simpler. His concerns had been how wet the sand was, getting the walls straight, the towers tall, the crenelations even. They had been simple days, simple joys, simple goals of seeing something beautiful and amazing and full of life spring forth from his hands. When he was done making walls and towers and keeps he'd make banners out of sticks and seaweed, bridges out of driftwood, and studded the whole thing over with sea shells. Then he'd imagine the people who would live in his creation, the lives they'd lead, the happiness they would find.
It was easier with sand, he learned far too late. Even when it fell from its own weight, when it dried out, when it was kicked over by the other kids, no one was hurt. The people were just fantasies he dreamed up. There was no brave knight that guarded the realm. No fair and honest king who lead with a kind hand. No wise counselor who tempered the kings strength with careful thought. No, all there was to be had in the world was a broken city, raised on stilts into the sky, as if the height could make them gods. He could see it even now, the skeleton of his foolishness, of his belief that he could make something better in the world. The remains of a place that had drained the life not only from the very earth, but from the people, from the places, from the whole world because of the terrors it had wrought. The knight was not brave, but a corrupt general who sought only destruction. The king ruled with fear and pain, learning humility and sorrow only long after he had led towards the ruin of what could have been a utopia. The wise man was cruel and vicious, as willing to sacrifice his own son to his pursuits as he was any other who passed before him.
As for him? Now there was the greatest joke of all. He hadn't wanted to make a name, to be remembered, to be lauded. All he'd wanted, all he'd ever desired, was to make the lives of those around him better. To turn a city into a metropolis without pain and suffering. That had been doomed from the beginning. In time he'd turned his attention instead to making their lives better. Turned to making them bearable. Turned to trying to see that they even got to live. Now here they were, living in the shadow of what he'd always wanted for them. A city planned by his own hand, echoing the shadow that overhung it. Straight lines and careful planning and nothing but a cold, clean, conscious design that would only serve as a starting point for something he'd never see to its end.
"Sir…" a voice beckons, and after a moment longer at his window to consider the town that had been dubbed 'Edge,' he turns to the source. A secretary, his, but he doesn't recall her name. A shame that. How long had she been working with him? Ten years? Twenty? He couldn't remember. There was so much these days that he could not remember. Funny how the things that he could were the most painful. His greatest shortcomings.
"Yes?"
"The car has arrived and… Mister Tuesti, you haven't even begun packing your things."
"Yes. I noticed that as well. No matter. It isn't important anyway."
He knows that isn't true, at least on some level. There are pictures on the desk, trinkets, tokens that he is sure meant something to him once. There is a pen there, a simple looking ball-point pen plated in not-gold. He doesn't know how many years ago it ran dry, but the fact that it is still there has to mean something to him. It doesn't. Some of the faces in the pictures aren't familiar on the bad days. There have been more and more bad days lately. Too many. It's time that he admits that to himself. He already did to the WRO's board of directors only a week ago. Maybe more time than that actually. Maybe less. It's hard to tell how time passes anymore. What he knows is that it does, unrelenting, unceasing, unkindly.
"Reeve…" the woman whispers, and the way she says it is familiar, sorrowful, pained. Yes, he had to have worked with her for a long time to cause her this kind of pain. She knows him, well. Like as not she has been there at his side for a long time, making sure that the coffee was just how he liked it, that he always had a fresh pen, that he got through the paperwork in a timely manner when his idealism slowed him down. And he can't even put a name to her face.
"It's out front?" he asks. Not wanting to see the pain a moment longer he returns his gaze beyond the window, to the city that has risen up from the ashes of his fallen dreams. Of the failed utopia. From the sands of time and memory. The streets are too straight. Funny how he realizes it now that it's too late to do anything about it. Yes, straight is easy, it's convenient, it's pleasant, but it lacks character.
"Yes sir, Mister Tuesti. Would you like me to call down and have it delayed while you pack?"
"No. I have all I need." His hand goes almost reflexively to his breast pocket, to the only thing he bothers keeping on himself, that they let him keep because they can't trust him with the keys to his apartment anymore, not since he spent a night wandering Edge, unable to remember where he lived.
In the pocket is a picture, taken on a better day. Or what might pass for a better day when compared to today. Worse for what was happening, but better for him. Because then he knew all the faces, all the words, all the actions, all the memories. Now he has the picture, their names written on the back in a careful hand that he knows isn't his own. It's the only way to keep it straight. To keep the memory there. To remember that briefly he was a hero. That he had worked to fix the problems that he had helped to create. That for one moment in his life, he had truly lived his dreams. He had helped people, he had saved them, he had given them better lives as he'd worked to clean up the pieces.
He doesn't remember why he fought, not beyond that.
"Sir…"
"Reeve."
"Reeve," she repeats, but he shakes his head, almost amused.
"Not my name. The word. Do you know what the word 'reeve' means?"
"No sir, I can't say that I do."
"A long time ago it was a title. Much like 'baron' or 'knight' or 'page.' It had a very specific meaning. A reeve was a senior official, serving under the crown. A magistrate in charge of a town or a district. In later days it came to mean a man who managed a lord's manor and oversaw the work of the peasants. A reeve was a servant, of both the rulers and the people, when they were not corrupt. And they were not to be. The lord, or peasants, appointed or elected a reeve. One only retained the position through good and loyal service. They gave themselves for others, to see that things were done right."
She doesn't respond, but he hadn't expected her to. Instead he just chuckled, half bitter, half tired.
"Well… Did I? Did I see things were done right? At least by the end?"
Her response is slow in the coming, but when it does it almost tears from her with the sob.
He wonders if he'll even remember the sound of her voice by the time he lays down to sleep. Somehow he knows the answer will linger with him well beyond the point of memory or meaning.